News, views, …
Back to Main
August 27, 2005
Open Weekend Thread
Comments
A good read: Santorum’s People Toss Young Women out of Barnes & Noble, Trooper Threatens Them with Prison.
The steam roller goes on.
As I’ve said a zillion times, Bush is just the symptom. The disease in in the American psyche (averagely speaking).
At the risk of sounding like a 17th century physician, you need a bloodletting to relieve the humors.
Posted by: Lupin | Aug 27 2005 6:49 utc | 1
A crash course in Venezuelan history, via Metafilter
Chávez and other aspects of recent Venezuelan history..
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Aug 27 2005 10:45 utc | 3
Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness
This phrase is commonly attributed to the Constitution, but it comes from the Declaration of Independence.
Of the people, by the people, for the people
This phrase is commonly attributed to the Constitution, but it comes from the Gettysburg Address.
The Right to Vote?
Things that are not in the U.S. Constitution.
It’s astounding to realize that the basic freedoms we take for granted or insist upon are nowhere to be found on that sacred parchment. At least some of them are implied by amendments. But only just. One of the most important pages to read these days.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Aug 27 2005 11:14 utc | 4
does billmon have some sort of bio someplace? He and Matt Taibbi are my favorite reads. Well, after Shakespeare.
Posted by: Aloyisius | Aug 27 2005 12:45 utc | 5
Turn a blind eye to what they want – even if that is corrupting the police, burning alcohol shops, oppressing women – and you give them an interest in keeping Basra relatively quiet, allowing Britain to scale down troop levels next year. The alternative is to stir things up, US-style, by confronting clerics and arresting militia members, thus pushing British casualties closer to US levels.
Vincent raged against the trade-off and accused Britain, rich on human-rights rhetoric, of buying itself an exit strategy by abandoning Basra to intolerance and gangsterism. He was right.
Posted by: Cloned Poster | Aug 27 2005 13:02 utc | 6
Regarding Venezuala, recall the President Reagan’s invasion of Grenada soon after the Marine barracks in Lebanon were blown up. I believe they were only a week apart. All of sudden the pain of defeat was forgotten and our military might was once again celebrated. These are dangerous times.
Posted by: Mark | Aug 27 2005 14:41 utc | 8
A funny and smart reading of the leaked document – these guys are shameless!
Posted by: TwoSwords | Aug 27 2005 16:32 utc | 9
A funny and smart reading of the leaked document – these guys are shameless!
Posted by: TwoSwords | Aug 27 2005 16:33 utc | 10
howdy, ya’ll!
i’ve loitered here from time to time; this is my first post. just wanted to say how delighted i am that billmon and a handful of others are not letting the Safia al-Suhail story drop. imo, a 24/7 campaign asking novak “is she ‘repellent,’ mr. prince of darkness, sir?” is quite in order!
peace
Posted by: Cedwyn | Aug 28 2005 0:22 utc | 11
mark….grenada’s nutmeg was important for the US’ national security.;)
Posted by: lenin’s ghost | Aug 28 2005 2:00 utc | 12
Just FYI, but MoA regular John Francis Lee has a piece published on the Counterpunch web site this weekend: The Juggernaut of Jingo. He posted it on MoA on another thread a few days ago, but it seemed appropriate to note that Counterpunch liked it enough to post it on theirs as well. Just thought I’d mention it for those who may have missed it. Good points, well written. Nice job, JFL.
Posted by: lonesomeG | Aug 28 2005 3:19 utc | 14
Just as you would expect it: Army Contract Official Critical of Halliburton Pact Is Demoted
A top Army contracting official who criticized a large, noncompetitive contract with the Halliburton Company for work in Iraq was demoted Saturday for what the Army called poor job performance.
The official, Bunnatine H. Greenhouse, has worked in military procurement for 20 years and for the past several years had been the chief overseer of contracts at the Army Corps of Engineers, the agency that has managed much of the reconstruction work in Iraq.
…
Ms. Greenhouse fought the demotion through official channels, and publicly described her clashes with Corps of Engineers leaders over a five-year, $7 billion oil-repair contract awarded to Kellogg Brown & Root. She had argued that if urgency required a no-bid contract, its duration should be brief.
Ms. Greenhouse had also fought the granting of a waiver to Kellogg Brown & Root in December 2003, approving the high prices it had paid for fuel imports for Iraq, and had objected to extending its five-year contract for logistical support in the Balkans for 11 months and $165 million without competitive bidding. In late June, ignoring warnings from her superiors, Ms. Greenhouse appeared before a Congressional panel, calling the Kellogg Brown & Root oil contract “the most blatant and improper contract abuse I have witnessed during the course of my professional career.” She also said the defense secretary’s office had improperly interfered in the awarding of the contract.
Krugman rightfully bashes Greenspan:
Greenspan and the Bubble
These days Mr. Greenspan expresses concern about the financial risks created by “the prevalence of interest-only loans and the introduction of more-exotic forms of adjustable-rate mortgages.” But last year he encouraged families to take on those very risks, touting the advantages of adjustable-rate mortgages and declaring that “American consumers might benefit if lenders provided greater mortgage product alternatives to the traditional fixed-rate mortgage.”
If Mr. Greenspan had said two years ago what he’s saying now, people might have borrowed less and bought more wisely. But he didn’t, and now it’s too late. There are signs that the housing market either has peaked already or soon will. And it will be up to Mr. Greenspan’s successor to manage the bubble’s aftermath.
Aside from this article’s stupid story, Strategizing a Christian Coup d’Etat, how can a reporter of the LA Times NOT point out this idiocity:
“I want to migrate and claim the gold of the Lord,” said the 38-year-old oil company executive from Pennsylvania. “I want to replicate the statutes and the mores and the scriptures that the God of the Old Testament espoused to the world.”
DiMartino, who drove here recently to look for a new home, is a member of Christian Exodus, a movement of politically active believers who hope to establish a government based upon Christian principles.
What is “Christian” in the Old Testament?
Appropos of nothing apart from Warner’s comments about the ingratitude of the Iraqi people. Does anyone know what happened to Manuel Noriega?
As far as I know it’s at least 15 years he’s has been held incommunicado. He was only allowed a lawyer approved by State and Justice departments for his mock trial.
He must have knowledge of where bodies US officials are still embarrassed about are buried to have been held for this long.
This may have sent the message the imperialists wanted to the other South and Central American puppet regimes but it must also have caused a lot of people from that area to hesitate before getting involved with the US. Perhaps this is why China appears a better option to leaders wanting to establish independence from foreign intervention.
Posted by: Debs is dead | Aug 30 2005 1:29 utc | 18
Can any moon bats, confirm or shed light on this case?
‘Burning Bush’ comment draws 37 year prison term
Man plans to appeal
CNN 12/06/02
Original Link: http://www.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/12/06/burning.bush.ap (Removed from CNN website)
SIOUX FALLS, South Dakota (AP) — A man who made a remark about a “burning Bush” during the president’s March 2001 trip to Sioux Falls was sentenced Friday to 37 months in prison.
Richard Humphreys of Portland, Oregon was convicted in September of threatening to kill or harm the president and said he plans to appeal. He has said the comment was a prophecy protected under his right to free speech.
Humphreys said he got into a barroom discussion in nearby Watertown with a truck driver. A bartender who overheard the conversation realized the president was to visit Sioux Falls the next day and told police Humphreys talked about a “burning Bush” and the possibility of someone pouring a flammable liquid on Bush and lighting it.
“I said God might speak to the world through a burning Bush,” Humphreys testified during his trial. “I had said that before and I thought it was funny.”
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Aug 30 2005 7:17 utc | 19
good one J.F.L.
& thanks lonesomeG for pointing that out.
Posted by: anna missed | Aug 30 2005 8:56 utc | 21
Why isn’t Bush on the border?
By Pat Buchanan
“We are being invaded,” the reactionary Republican declared in his column Monday, “and the president of the United States is not doing his duty to protect the states against that invasion.”
“Some courageous Republican, to get the attention of this White House, should drop into the hopper a bill of impeachment,” he added, “charging Bush with a conscious refusal to uphold his oath and defend the states of the Union against ‘invasion.'”
Strikingly, he credits Democrats for ‘awakening’ to the issue.
“Not only have [Democratic governors] Richardson and Napolitano awakened — they are on the front lines — so, too, has Hillary Clinton, who has spoken out against illegal immigration with a forthrightness that makes Bush sound like a talking head for La Raza.”
Puts the DLC Demoplicans right where they belong… backing up Pat Buchanan.
Posted by: John Francis Lee | Aug 30 2005 13:03 utc | 22